Fresh Loaf

First it was Kudzu, then it was Shonen Knife. Now this.

The newest gift from Japan is a car that runs on water. Freshwater, saltwater, rain — it doesn’t matter. One liter of the liquid, researchers say, is enough to power the little mobile for 50 miles in an hour.

Sadly, this doesn’t help us. At least not metro Atlanta. There’s another problem:

“The car will continue to run as long as you have a bottle of water to top up from time to time,” Genepax CEO Kiyoshi Hirasawa told local broadcaster TV Tokyo.

This might work in fueling rental scooters in Panama City Beach, Fla., but inland, the Mayorz hate the bottlez. Add to the fact that amping up production of bottled water to fuel entire fleets of cars would probably offset any environmental gains made if we eased off gasoline. (It takes 17 million barrels of oil every year to manufacture plastic bottles, most of which end up in landfills.)

Please continue with the innovation, Japan. Send us a car that runs on broken promises and Atlanta will be set!

(Toboggan tip to Crooks and Liars, who has a video of the invention.)

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A resolution that encouraged municipalities to start loving the tap and phase out spending city dollars on bottled water passed today at the annual U.S. Conference of Mayors convention in Miami.

“Cities are sending the wrong message about the quality of public water when we spend taxpayer dollars on water in disposable containers from a private corporation,” San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said in a release. “Our public water systems are among the best in the world and demand significant and ongoing investment.”

Mayor Shirley Franklin attended this weekend’s conference but was not present for today’s vote. A spokesperson says she left early to Savannah for the Georgia Municipal Association’s annual convention. A spokesperson says Franklin helped clarify language in the resolution that wouldn’t prohibit bottled water outright, but use municipal water when it was most feasible. The legislation was sponsored by mayors from 17 U.S. cities including Seattle, Chicago and New York City.

(You didn’t think the city that was bailed out by the world’s favorite sugared-water manufacturer in 1934 would snub its nose at said bottler, did you?)

According to Corporate Accountability International, a big-business watchdog group who applauded the resolution, cities spend an estimated $70 million each year on disposing of plastic bottles. The group says cities such as San Francisco spend more than $500,000 on annual contracts for bottled water.

“It’s just plain common sense for cities to stop padding the bottled water industry’s bottom line at taxpayer expense,” said Gigi Kellett of the group and national director of its Think Outside the Bottle campaign. “This resolution will send the strong message that opting for tap over bottled water is what’s best for our environment, our pocketbooks and our long-term, equitable access to our most essential resource.”

The clarifying language makes clear that municipalities may need to turn to bottled water in the case of emergencies. To view the resolution, click here.

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Mayor Shirley Franklin has the opportunity this weekend to join the leaders of San Francisco, Chicago, New York City and other cities to encourage a phase-out of bottled water from government use.

A resolution encouraging municipalities to promote its municipal water supply and avoid the overpriced alternative to the tap will be placed before Franklin on Saturday at the U.S. Conference of Mayors annual meeting in Miami. A spokesperson for Franklin says the mayor’s been lobbied heavily on the issue and has yet to make a decision if she will sign the resolution or not.

Corporate Accountability International, a big-business watchdog group, points to the large amounts of waste generated each year by plastic water bottles, the safety of municipal-water systems, and the impact bottled-water manufacturers have on water supplies as why such a resolution would be a good move.

To read the resolution, click here. Click here to read a CL piece about a Dasani plant in Marietta that bottles purified municipal water during a drought.

(Photo by Joeff Davis; illustration by John Yardley)

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The following e-mail and photo came to CL from Alex W., a self-described “Lifetime Water Drinker” in southern Indiana. Alex is worried we’re not taking our drought seriously.

Greetings,
I was shopping with friends in the local WalMart store
here in Southern Indiana when I came upon a pretty
bottle of water. My interest in where exactly people
were getting this “safer” source of water lead me to
inspect the label.

My jaw dropped as I read, (more…)

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